Hammer_Down

I had these for a few days post op. It felt like my stomach was on the verge of growling from the worst kind of hunger pain, but it would not growl and just contorted and twisted and flip flopped. It went away totally after a few days.

You have just lost 5% of your body mass from starting weight. Your body will need time to adjust, reproportion your remaining body mass and will try to maintain homeostasis (stability). Similar to the way that you will swear when your body temperature goes up, or you will shiver when your body temperature drops. This is normal. Take measurements. You will notice a loss of abdominal fat as your body takes fat from some areas and redistributes it to other places, like your face where fat tends to drop first. This is why you seldomly see people with a tiny, thin face but huge bum and thighs. Or a tiny waist with very large breasts. You will continue to be proportionate, even as your body burns fat from some areas.

If you gained 52 lbs in just 3 months you wouldn't consider yourself a slow gainer, or consider that to be healthy change to your metabolism. This is a marathon, not a 500 yard dash. Long term success depends on you staying with the program in the long term and making healthy choices. It sounds like you are doing great. My wife only has about 50 lbs to lose, she fully expects it take about a year.

If you are tasting metallic overtones, it is most likely caused by ketosis. Your body stores approximately 300g of glucose in the muscles, and all excess glucose is converted to triglycerides and stored as fat. When you cut carbs, these stores of glycogen (stored glucose) deplete and your body turns to body fat as a source of fuel. Your liver continues to produce glucose for bodily functions. Initially, your body isn't very good at using fat for fuel. Byproducts of burnt fat, known as ketone. Loses, are used for fuel as well while you are in ketosis. There are 3 kinds of ketones, one of which is acetone and excreted through your breath. It is normal to notice a change of your breath smell when this process starts.

I quit regular coffee and went on decaf 3 months before surgery. I haven't had any desire for coffee at all since surgery. I certainly won't be slowly trying to get myself re-addicted to caffeine, the headaches from quitting were the week from hell.

For myself, I found hunger eased up around the end of week 1. I was so happy just to be able to have something other than Water (sugar free junk just makes me crave carbs, so I have avoided them). I'm now getting ready to start purées. I was dying for this moment during week 1 on Clear Liquids, and now I don't really care. I'm not hungry.

My wife has been complaining that she tastes like she has morning breath after brushing every day. I haven't noticed it on her, and I haven't noticed it on myself.

Magnesium citrate capleta in the supplements aisle. You can buy it as a liquid, but you might get unpredictable BMs at first. With the tablets, you are both supplementing magnesium (very important) as well as taking in an element known for softening stools. I restarted my Mg supps after I went 8 days post op without a BM and 12 hours later things started moving again.

Glad to hear that. The best teachers I ever had (in school, university and life) weren't the ones who always agreed with me or gave me an A. The best teachers I've had were the ones who challenged me in my thinking, provoked me to make a point about my assumptions and sometimes slapped me down (metaphorically, of course) when I became too confident, too soon. I learned how to stand by my convictions not by being placated but by being dared to.

This is the third time I have asked myself "is this a serious post or someone trying to start drama for fun?" (Ie trolling) since I started reading it. I don't feel any closer to drawing a conclusion yet. Is this for real? Ask for advice and then give a black eye to everyone who tries to give said advice? Why ask then?

I'm hoping it doesn't take as long as some to get back to meat. Meat has always been my favourite thing on my plate. In fact, I did a "keto" died that was actually just me being a carnivore. I shunned fruits and vegetables for 18 months and lost 100 lbs. Sadly, beer crept back in first, and before I knew it I was eating grains and carbs again and gaining weight. If the thought of raw meat in your stomach makes you sick, we probably can't be friends. I like steak as thick as a baseball and cooked blue rare, basically just warmed up on the outside.

Fun fact about chewing: The act of chewing (or mastication, as it known when it pertains to food) releases seratonin in the brain. We should all be familiar with seratonin after the Prozac craze in the 90s when aunt Betty started attending 3 bingos a day. MDMA, a powerful amphatemine and the active ingredient in the drug Ecstasy also stimulates seratonin. And the effects are euphoric, addictive and ultimately cause depression when you quit. If you're just dying to chew on something, anything or everything it is very likely that you are coping with the withdrawal of seratonin. Your brain knows if you just start smacking away, you'll get that seeet, sweet hit. This is part of the food-reward system that drives food and obesity. It is why goodnight companies spend billions researching sweetness saturation factors and textures that will promote desire for their product. No doubt there is an evolutionary purpose for this function. Historically, humans have had to rely on absolutely putrid and rancid foods for survival at times. This makes eating festered, maggot covered finds more palatable. In today's world, it has contributed to disordered eating. The food-reward system is incredibly strong and difficult to break. The first step is trying and. Or giving up when it gets hard. As far as spitting food out after chewing - I watched an episode of Intervention on a girl who did that, and sorry but that is THE nastiest habit I ever saw in the whole run of the show.

We are doing great! Back to work for almost a week (12 hour shifts for 7 days, running a tractor trailer round the clock) and doing okay! Work keeps us off the scale for 7 days at a time since we are not home, but I lost a pound a day for the first 22 days and can feel my work uniform fitting looser now. Will be home again on Friday, and weigh in then. We're off coffee totally. Haven't stepped foot inside the truck stop except to use the bathroom and not even considering the plethora of sugary drinks and junk available. We start puréed foods when we are home this weekend, which I am looking forward to in a way, but have also been enjoying full liquids. Incisions are healed up for the most part and unbandaged now. I still have to get those stictches out at a clinic when I am home next, but so far so good for us!

I'm glad that it's okay for me to say "no, thanks" or "just Water please" and not take a ribbing from my friends. We're not 17 anymore. I don't need to provide a reason why I'm not drinking.

[quote name="KristenLe" post="4310390" timestamp=" It's much easier to accomplish this once you're able to eat more and get enough Protein from foods alone. That's not possible for most for a while. I need to supplement. Protein shakes or powder are required. How do you plan to get thru that stage eating only real foods? I'm not being snarky - I'm truly wondering how it can be done? It's definitely easier when you can ingest solid foots like meats to eat your protein. I bought a $10 blender and proceeded to purée some higher protein vegetables, but mostly legumes. I love split pea soup, and while I can't jazz It up with ham or bacon yet, I can fire in some cream cheese (an ok source of protein as well as delicious) and melt it all down. Pea purée and spinach dips and puréed bean soup tastes pretty good with a few cloves of roasted garlic (then puréed of course) and all cooked together in a broth of your choice. I hope this answers your question. When I transition to more solid foods, I'll add some extra cream cheese and less broth to thicken it up. Once I can tolerate meats again, this problem will correct itself as meat is my most favourite thing to cook, and eat. While this is all very interesting, it is a distraction from the problem at hand: How does sugar free Jello help increase protein during post op? puddings? Popsicles?

I totally 100% agree with you about the gateway principles. I was given morphine and fentanyl during my surgery, and while I felt euphoric at the time, I don't plan to pursue a career as an opiate addict, either. The problem for me, is that I am already a food addict. I am in food rehab now, and no one would suggest to a alcoholic that having a glass of wine for a special occasion is ok, or to an opiate addict that just a little shot is fine on your birthday, but don't let it get out of hand. For reformed smokers to go ahead and have a smoke at the game, just don't buy anymore on your way home. We all got to be overweight because of or disordered eating and food addictions. Eventually, the restriction in a sleeve will only do so much and people can, and often do, eat around their sleeve and regain weight. The first few years post op is your time to straighten up, and prepare for the rest of your life without the food that made you fat and sick to begin with, or face being one of statistics whose diabetes returns, weight returns, heart disease return surgery and is facing being "resleeved" or worse. Inability to acknowledge or recognize addiction IS the face of addiction.

I am concerned with both starches, whole grains as well as sweets, regardless of their caloric value or carb count. I haven't been able to enjoy breads and pastas since I was a teenager anyway, since I quickly put together that they made me gain weight. And yes, all the breads and pastas we had were whole grain, fibrous, supposedly "healthy" grains. MY mother baked a lot of her own bread and made her own Pasta. I was surprised to learn that artificial sweeteners create an insulinemic response similar to table sugar. That was when I gave up Diet Coke once and for all, after many years of being addicted to and thinking I was sparing myself the worst by indulging in a carb free, calorie free drink.

Your gall bladder serves a distinct and well understood purpose in digestion and metabolism of dietary fats. It's not like an appendix, where there are only theories as to it's purpose, or tonsils which were long thought to be vestigial and removed from every kid with a sore throat. Your gall bladder contains bile required to digest fat. On low fat diets or cholesterol reducing diets left over from the fat phobic 80s, there is evidence of bile stones and cholesterol stones building up. Eating fat regularly can help keep your gall bladder healthy.

The problem with this logic is that simply coming from a plant and thus not being artificial doesn't necessarily mean we should be filling up on it. Sugar comes from a plant, too. Splenda is simply a modified sucrose molecule, thus it is technically plant based as well. Cocaine is made from cocoa leaves, heroin is made from poppy seeds and alcohol will form in the bottom of your trash can if it's left out long enough with any plant based material in it. Eating sweet foods, regardless of how abd whybthey are sweet causes cravings for sweet foods. Diet Coke contains no sugar, yet it promotes a response from your pancreas similar to regular Coke. Your brain perceives sweetness and prepares for an onslaught of sugar, even if there is none.

Well, there's always another option: eat real foods. I am post op on full liquids, and avoiding food with little or no nutritional value to prepare myself for the rest of my life. puddings, popsicles, cereals, Gatorade etc are all things that people 75 years ago would not even recognize. Most of the grocery store aisles are full of crap that humans never ate until recently, when people started getting fat and sick. Why not stick to real food? If it has no nutrients, has to be fortified just to give it any nutritional value whatsoever and adds nothing to your nutritional profile then why bother? I made a butternut and acorn squash soup for full liquids. Puréed the squash, some cream cheese, butter and cayenne pepper. I made a puréed spinach, green onion and garlic dip that I watered down to soup like consistency. I drink broths with only 3 ingredients on the label. sugar free Oreo ice cream is not going to help me reform my eating habits. 100 calorie packets of microwave popcorn are not going to help me reform my eating habits. Eventually, the sleeve will only do so much and if I don't clean up my act, I am going to gain weight again. Period.

Definitely. We all communicate ideas in our way, and as long as we get our point across, it's effective communication. I am a fairly empathetic person. So I try to imagine walking a mile in someone else's shoes to level with them. Hey, I struggled financially after graduating from university. I don't have to imagine how frustrating and challenging that battle is, because I fought it. I lost and regained 100lbs in the past 5 years, so I don't have to dig very deep to remember the intense shame, disgust and disappointment I felt when I see people struggling with regain. What I don't, cannot, WILL NOT do is accept self pitying "woe is me" attitudes. Despite my things not always turning out the way I might like, I refuse to feel sorry for myself. And I will not offer sympathy to people who put themselves in situations or set themselves up for failure and come online fidhibgvfir compliments or sympathy, It IS hard. So do either something about it, or quit. But don't expect me to feel sorry for you.

Sorry, whatever was I thinking? So, can I eat chicken wings and have beer 8 days post op?

Unfortunately, the logic of "listening to my body" is not always sound. Most of us "listened to our bodies" and ended up hundreds of pounds overweight. Addiction to any substance, including (or maybe especially) food is when you can't recognize there is a problem with the behaviour. Feeling like it's probably okay because you want to do it. Addiction is a problem where your body tells you there is no problem, when there clearly is. In my case, my surgeon had me on Clear Liquids only up until day 8. For me, that means Water. Lots of water. But just water or broth. I don't need artificial sweeteners revving up my sugar cravings because I have eliminated sweets from my diet. Day 8 is starting full liquids. Anything that is the consistency that could be suked through a straw. So water, Protein shakes and broth. I was sleeved 9 days ago, and sausages and eggs will not be on the menu until Dec 12, assuming I have no problems with the intermittent stages and require staying on puréed foods longer. As far as vomiting goes, avoiding vomiting is part of the reason for transitioning slowly onto solid foods. It goes without saying that vomiting should not be a part of your daily routine or considered normal. Eating foods that will promote vomiting afterwards sounds an awful lot like a form of bulimia.

Again -- great post! Thanks, I'm a new member to the forum but not new to the game. I mentioned before that not I'm not everyone's cup of tea, but I'm not a nasty or mean spirited person. My friends all know not to ask my opinion if what they really want is validation. I don't want them telling people that I thought it was a good idea to purchase a brand new car when the car they had worked just fine and they're not employed full time. (Just an example, had 2 friends trying to convince me that "projecting success" is more important than being financially solvent, and I do not agree).

Just so we're clear, the word "judgemental" gets thrown around a lot on this forum. You can feel judged by someone, even if they weren't being judgemental and that is your own issue. Not being able to accept the truth. Judgmental: "I'm a much better person than you, and always will be because I didn't cheat on my pre-op diet. Failures like you don't deserve this wonderful opportunity to change their lives for the better because you're just going to waste it anyway." Enabling: "I know, I cheated on my pre-op diet too and I was fine so I wouldn't worry about it! It's just a suggested diet anyway and you know what your body needs more than some doctor! You got this girl!" Bullying: "Why are you so stupid? Morons like you should be taken out of the gene pool, since you obviously took a shallow dive to begin with. If I was there right now I'd seriously whoop you because I can't stand people who come around here looking for sympathy because they are screw ups." Supportive: "I can appreciate that this is really hard, because I went through it myself 2 years ago. The temptations don't go away, you will probably always struggle some. But it gets easier the longer you make the right choices. I think you really need to consider why you had this surgery if you aren't making 100% efforts to follow your doctor's guidelines."